You'll Just Come After Her
by ArmyOfPenguins
Summary: That thought rings in Joel's mind as he approaches the little rundown house. A familiar melody, plucked from the strings of a guitar, floats around him as he stews over recent events.


_You'll just come after her._

Those words rang in Joel's ears as he slowly, cautiously made his way towards the small, rundown house. Words he'd uttered a long time ago. Seemed like forever. He'd said them with a seething hatred and followed them up with the squeeze of a trigger. He'd thought that was enough to prevent his words from becoming true.

It wasn't.

An out-of-tune chord from a guitar floated gently on the breeze from the little house in front of him. It was followed by a few more plucks at the strings in an attempt to locate the offending string. A small smile tugged at Joel's lips despite the situation. He'd taught her how to play. That and the fact that she was playing at all meant that the immediate danger had passed and she was safe. At least for now.

Joel straightened as he continued towards the house, no longer cautious but still very much alert. He stepped over a dead Firefly as a gentle tune began drifting out from within the house, floating out the wide-open front door. It was sort of muffled and distorted, but he recognized it immediately. It was one of the first songs he'd taught her.

Soon, her voice joined the melody. She sounded tired. Exhausted. Strained from the rush of adrenaline brought on by the fight. He couldn't understand the words, but he didn't need to. He knew them. Those words described much of his life after the outbreak. They ran through his head whenever he was about to or had just done something morally questionable.

Like "rescuing" Ellie even though he knew she'd have wanted to go through with the surgery. Like killing all those Fireflies to get to her. Like killing Marlene so she wouldn't send more Fireflies after her.

Except that's exactly what had happened. They'd come for her.

 _Surely goodness and mercy will follow me,_

 _all the days of my life._

The words floated down the hallway as Joel walked through the door. Goodness and mercy. Those things hadn't followed him. Not at all. He'd thought that maybe he had finally found a little goodness and mercy when they settled in at Tommy's and, for a while, it seemed he'd been right.

Joel stepped over the outstretched legs of a Firefly who lay crumpled against one wall in a fresh pool of his own blood. The sound of Ellie's voice danced around him, taunting him, as he passed a doorway. A woman lay in a bloody heap between the toilet and the bathtub. And then...

 _I can't walk on the path of the right, 'cuz I'm wrong._

Those words, carried on the voice of the innocent young girl he'd looked after for more than five years, hit him like a sack of bricks. All the guilt of the last few years came boiling back to the surface. Marlene's murder, of course, but worse than that, his lie. His lie to Ellie and the fact that she had taken it at face value. He knew she suspected, but she never once brought it up. He had spent the last few years suppressing that guilt. He'd been wrong. So very wrong.

Joel stepped into the doorway to the bedroom and leaned against the frame as Ellie repeated the line one more time, very slowly. He noted the Firefly sprawled in the center of the room. He was simultaneously impressed and grief-stricken. She had managed to track down and kill every single Firefly that had retreated from the attack on the dam. The attack that had been aimed at reclaiming Ellie.

The attack that had taken the one person from her that she cared about as much as she did about Joel.

And now...now, she was on a vengeance-fueled rampage. Because of his lie. She didn't know they had really been after her. All she knew was that they had killed the one she loved. He knew he could never have let her die on that operating table, but he could have at least told her the truth. Maybe could have prevented a lot of deaths when the Fireflies showed up. She'd have known they were after her and she'd have gone with them.

Instead, she was on a mission, fueled by a false hatred, that would likely get her killed anyway.

"What are you doin', kiddo?" Joel asked calmly. "You really gonna go through with this?"

She slowly set her guitar down at the end of the bed she was sitting on.

"I'm gonna find, and I'm gonna kill," she turned to look at Joel, rage filling her eyes, "every...last...one of them."

His heart sank. Guilt threatened to consume him. It was almost more than he could bear. His baby girl, so full of hate, so bent on revenge.

Because of him.

* * *

A/N: My take on what might happen in TLOU 2. This is based on the Theseus theory. I really don't think that Joel is dead and appear as an apparition to guide Ellie. To me, that just doesn't fit with the theme of the game. In my opinion, this is really the only other logical thing, aside from Joel's death, that could throw Ellie into a rampage. That's not to say that I don't think Joel will die at some point. I think there's a very real chance that will happen. Anyways, let me know what you think!


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